7. Island life ….

This edition finds me in fully relaxed mode on a ‘no-dive day’. What that means is that I was woken up by people crashing about to get ready to go to their dives, I got up and went a made a caffeine tea (first one of the day for waking up!), went and let the boys at the jetty know I wouldn’t be diving, sat and had my tea in the restaurant with the WiFi, chatted ⚓️💙then read my book for a bit while I drunk my tea then accidentally fell back to sleep for almost 3 hours (in my room, not draped over a table in restaurant before anyone thinks I’ve totally lost it!). I then I got up, made another caffeine tea (the first one clearly didn’t do it’s job) and am now stretched out the sofa area reading my book and producing another exciting instalment on my adventure. As you may have seen, I’ve also managed to upload some photos from here - WiFi has far more capacity when the majority of people are off under the sea! There are photos kind of referred to in blog no 6 and some from this one. I wasn’t able to order them so they’re a bit randomly in the order they uploaded in …. It was a small miracle that it worked at all so I didn’t tempt fete by buggering about with them any further. They are also in a number of smaller galleries I think too - but the minor inconvenience that may cause you should be overlooked in return for the LONG time it’s taken me to get them to upload at all. You’re welcome!

Anyway, yesterday I went to Sipidan island for the first time. It’s an extinct volcanic cone that coral has grown on over thousands of years, a reef has formed and an island protrudes from the sea. Although he wasn’t the first to visit, Jacque Cousteau came in 1988 in search of some mythical creature or other, perhaps mermaids, and while here discovered how incredible the dive site is and popularised it. For a number of years, dive resorts were built on the island and people could stay and dive there. However, early this century, it was made a national park and became illegal to stay overnight with all the resorts removed. Now, only a small number of permits to dive the island are available each day and only a small amount of people reside on the island; a contingent from the Malaysian army, who protect it, and staff at the turtle sanctuary there who keep an eye out for turtles laying eggs so they can relocate them to the hatchery to protect the eggs and hatchings before releasing them close to the sea! The turtle hatchlings are not given any help to hatch, free themselves from their eggs or dig up to the surface as this process is part of what strengthens them. They are then kept for the day on the island and released in the evening and guarded as they make their way to the sea. This increases the hatchlings chance of survival to turtle adulthood from around 1 in 1000 to 1 in 100…still pretty rubbish odds but as Elton John said, it’s the circle of life! We were allowed the visit the hatchery and see some of the tiny hatchlings and also the relocated and marked nests …. Just under 500 nests this year each with around 100 eggs in, mostly green turtles and hawksbill with the occasional loggerhead!

On Mabal island, there was initially major problems with the locals digging up and selling the turtle eggs - to the same mentalists that eat shark fin soup or think the bile from a bear’s stomach will reverse the aging process - so their numbers were dwindling. However, an initiative by the local dive resorts sponsored the nests and the locals are given a significant reward (more than they’d get for selling the eggs) if they report them. This seems to have been taken to heart and the locals now watch out for turtles coming to lay eggs, leave several guards and arrive relatively hysterically to reports nests, which are then relocated and brought to the local hatchery. There are absolutely loads of turtles here, which is amazing to see, so it must be going well! Fortunately, turtles are about as maternal as tortoises and not dissimilar from my own mother when locating the lense cap of the camera is prioritised over my serious medical emergency and the they never revisit the nest or have any interest in their hatchlings. They lay a massive amount of eggs and pack them well into their nests and depart. The depth / warmth of the nest determine what sex the hatchlings will be. Hotter = female. Obviously. When they are relocated, the staff are careful to note the depth and arrangement of nest so they can recreate it exactly. Global warming and rising temperatures tends to mean more females than males are being hatched …. This is either a bit of a risk to the turtle population or joyous news for the remaining males who will be particularly busy!

On my day to Sipidan yesterday, armed with my flask of delicious tea and bottle of squash and all my dive gear, I was ready. The American girl I was diving with asked about my bottle:

American: What’s that in your water bottle? Is it tea (remembering yesterday’s explanation of delicious tea)

Me: No! (Looking at the transparent orange liquid) It’s orange squash

A: you’ve squashed oranges into your bottle?

Me: (looking again at the contents a bit bemused) No, I’ve put water in and added orange squash

A: ahh, ok, water with oranges squashed in?

Me: erm, no. I think it’s another UK thing - it’s like cordial, do you know cordial? Orange flavoured cordial but without any added sugar

A: (totally confused) so you’ve made your water an orange colour?

Me: well yes, but I’ve also given it an orange flavour - like orange juice flavour but mainly water

A: wow, I thought your tea was weird

Me: well, it’s delicious but yes, I know. Do you want to try some of the orange squash?

A: Oh no, thanks, I’m ok (total look of distrust at the squash and possible concern that I may have hatched a plan to poison her but because my explanation is just so ridiculous, she’s foiled it and saved herself).…..

And so we carried on our chat about much safer, non drink related, subjects. Given the British colonised so much of world at points in history, it’s weird we didn’t leave them with the useful knowledge of how to make delicious tea with milk in the joys of fruit squash!

Anyway, after a particularly wave ridden, bumpy crossing which we emerged from looking like we’d just done a full dive, we showed our passports to Malaysian army rep on Sipidan, got ticked off the permit list and proceeded to do a couple of dives. The reef is incredible and the marine life is fab - something everywhere you look. We didn’t see any of the big sharks, which I’m generally quite thankful for, but saw reef sharks and white-tip reef sharks amongst loads of other big jacks and wrasse and massive bump head parrot fish (the ones in a group - long and tall fish with massive teeth for chomping up coral - which they then pooh back out as sand, which makes up the majority of the sand production in the world!). We also did 20 minutes of swimming out ‘in to the blue’ - which means we left the reef and swam out into open ocean. It can be quite disconcerting as you lose any reference point and rely entirely on your dive watch for depth and your compass (or in our case, dive master) for sense of direction. We hung about and swum out there in the hope of attracting (apparently!) hammerhead sharks …who will reportedly smell and hear us and want to come up for visual confirmation that we’re not (or might be!) food. Although it might be cool to see one, I was also a little relieved that we didn’t … what if it was an old one with dwindling eye sight….?? It’s best not to think too much about it as although we hung at around 20m deep, the drop off below us is extensive …  it’s called the blue abyss. Sipidan island has grown 600m from a mound in the sea bed so that is the minimal depth beneath you in the blue there. Parts of the drop off round the island are up to 2000m though. ‘The blue’ takes on new meaning!

In the evening last night, I also did a night dive ….pushing myself to my fear limits of swimming about in the black to look for stuff - we were only in fairly shallow water and close to the jetty. We saw so many sleeping turtles (they lay down somewhere and close their eyes…. Sometimes just in the sand or often tuck themselves into a little nook around a ship wreck or piece of wood or coral bommie. They tuck their head into a little dip and hide …. Because if they can’t see you, you can’t see their massive shall and back fins sticking out behind them. Genius! Our guide also poked at the sand with irritating frequency to unearth tiny weeny little dots of creatures that immediately burrowed back in. He was very excited about them - I think they were mostly baby octopus, which I diligently went to see the tiny speck of. I also saw, as well as the remarkably well hidden, massive sleeping turtles, a massive cuttlefish hunting, larger octopus, a sleeping flying fish with his wings spread out on the sand, frog fish, lion fish hunting, and some weird flat black worms (possibly) that scuttled about on the sand and occasionally lifted up to flap and dance about a foot off the sea bed! I was not eaten by any creatures from the black and survived the experienced entirely unharmed … although clearly exhausted myself to the extent that I’ve slept for around 12 hours since it happened!

For now, I can smell lunch time so I shall be off to meet up the people who have dived this morning and eat, do some more tea / squash drinking, read my book and generally laze about to recharge for another Sipidan day tomorrow …. It’s a hard life!